Category: empathy

Just as Art imitates or rather, conjures Life, that’s how Tarot works. As within, so without. The first thing I aim to do in a reading, is ask the cards to help me identify my client’s most pressing concern or question. The Tarot tells me by ensuring I draw the card that most accurately mirrors that unspoken concern or question, as closely as can be managed from among the 78 cards in a Tarot deck.

This ‘mirror-card’ tells me and my client that we are on the same wavelength, which provides a reliable baseline for the rest of the reading.

My Tarot did it again today, and deserves one of those little nectar pots adored by larikeets and parrots alike.

I was about to self- inject for the first time, trying out a new med for quite a severe severe rheumatoid-type illness (I have tried MANY approaches in 20 odd years, with too much ground covered to mention, while exercising great care in agreeing which pharma meds to try )

The med is called Orencia or Abatacept. It is a new class of meds known as biologics. Orencia works to inhibit the production of T cells, T1 and T1. These are normal proteins, and are essential for your normal immune response, but if that goes wrong for any reason, they can go into overproduction, causing an inflammatory cytokine cascade resulting in acute pain and long term damage.

These biologics, while for some they offer a last chance of respite, can be dangerous, so I thought I’d pull myself a few cards before injecting.

The first card out was The Tower.

Just look at that pic. How well did the Tarot do, with a deck of 78 cards to work with, shuffled and drawn blind and at random…in guiding me to draw this card, signifying the issue in question.

Look at the card again. Look at the injector pen.

Squawk! Pretty Polly!

This is how readers know their question has been heard and logged by their unconscious mind. The first card out of the deck will mirror the stated question, or even the unstated question.

Next I drew

4 Swords, (illness)

Ace Swords ( a sword, or in this case…spring loaded needle)

and 7 Pentacles. (tend to the crop, patience is required.)

This last card was also a suitable reflection as this med is is a weekly injection.

I therefore concluded, that while I could not expect a miracle, or even a significant observable response, there would be no significant negative response; a finding which I am so far in a position to validate.

In view of the fact that today is ‘Father’s Day‘, as if for a father, every day is not, I thought I’d talk about the ultimate Tarot card of Masculinity with a capital M, The Emperor.

In general, ‘The Emperor’ appearing in a Tarot reading signifies the current extra significance of an important man in your life, at an individual level. He’s a father, husband, employer, friend or advisor.

At a conceptual level, The Emperor stands for government, law and order, other big, hierarchical organisdations. He is the Armed Forces. He is the principle of protection and of the guardian at work in society and in the home.

See those ram’s heads on the arms of his throne? The Emperor is associated with the sign of Aries, the fiery ram. It may indicate a future event occurring at that time of year.

Image below is The Emperor from The Gilded Tarot, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti

Not surprisingly I’ve drawn this card when doing readings for police officers, both male and female. Women too can embody The Emperor’s qualities.

But once – and I won’t handle any more requests for lawsuit predictions; I drew the Emperor card, and it was talking about a real live judge. This judge was in the US. We won’t say where. My client was very anxious on her son’s behalf. He had been accused of sexual assault.

The details of the charge sounded so minor as to be almost laughable, but even so, and whatever the truth, the man faced serious consequences. He was a teacher and had been suspended from his employment as it involved work with minors, although the woman making the accusation was not a minor. He faced the possibility of being debarred from his home , denied unsupervised access to his children. He was, at the time of the reading, due to appear in court four days later.

A Tarot reading is not a substitute for suitable, professional legal, medical or financial advice. Forecasting is offered in good faith but is by law to be treated as being for interest’s sake. In consulting ANY oracle, you need always to be prepared for the possibility you really might not like the answer.

My client, his mother, wanted to be prepared for the worst, ready to support her son.

Based on this, I didn’t KNOW because a reader cannot KNOW for certain, ever. But I felt as certain as I could be, she was going to like this judge. I felt that the man was not guilty and that the judge would decide so.

Three weeks and several new grey hairs later, I learned the The Judge had thrown the case out. He had also offered this personal opinion:- verbatim (pardon me)

‘What a crock of sh*t.’

The Emperor at his very best represents order, structure, logic, sense and reason.

He is a chevalier, a sheltering tree, nests held safely in his branches. He is rule with mercy, compassion for the weak. He upholds fair play raising his shield so not everyone sheltering behind it gets splattered with rubbish and, er…manure.

He has another side to him of course: war, dictatorship, tyranny, petty officialdom, overbearing bureaucracy. The card may alternatively signify absence of structure and leadership. As a person, it may be pinpointing weakness or conversely, a bully boy. The Emperor Reversed is no joke, no doubt about it.

Historically, Emperors have often been catastrophic for the peace and happiness of their fellow humans, and Alexander the Great is no hero of mine; I’d rather nominate Dr John Snow or Charles Darwin, not only for their achievements, but for their humanity; as tender as tough.